BRICS By BRICS
NEED TO KNOW
BRICS By BRICS
WORLD
More than 20 years ago, an investment banker at Goldman Sachs created a catchy slogan to lure investors to emerging market powers Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, collectively labeling them BRICS.
Running with that acronym, the five countries created a club that has now become a force for the Global South to oppose a US-led world order, wrote World Politics Review. This club, which has doubled in size in the past two years, has now become the “hottest multilateral ticket in town.”
On Jan. 7, Indonesia joined the group now known as BRICS+, which has already expanded to include Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, and Egypt in 2024. It did so, Indonesian officials said, because it wanted to create a global system that is “more inclusive and equitable.” Now, Turkey, Malaysia, and Thailand are waiting in the wings, some like Turkey with “partner status.” Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, hasn’t decided whether to accept membership yet.
With Indonesia in the club, the bloc of 10 and a further nine partner countries now includes more than half of the world’s population and a greater share of its economic output than the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized countries. It controls a multilateral lender, major energy producers, and the world’s biggest manufacturing power, China.
The push to expand is coming from China, wrote Bloomberg, as it is trying to boost its global clout by seeking to build an alternative world order that challenges US hegemony. It wants to accomplish that by pulling southern hemisphere countries into its economic orbit.
Still, the news outlet added, the expansion of BRICS is “more about politics and less about economics.”
The expansion of BRICS has been backed so far by South Africa and Russia. Russia, like China, but for different reasons, would like to see an alternate system to the US-led global order, especially because it has been shut out of the world’s largest payment system, SWIFT, after it invaded Ukraine in 2022, in an attempt by the US and its allies to isolate it.
The addition of major fossil-fuel producers may give the bloc more clout to challenge the US dollar’s dominance in oil and gas trading by switching to other currencies, a switch called de-dollarization. India and the UAE last year began trading in Indian rupees and UAE dirhams rather than in US dollars, for example.
Still, it’s not so easy to ditch the dollar: The widespread use of the US currency in world trade is a cornerstone of the world order, while many BRICS countries’ currencies are less liquid. Earlier this week, Brazil, who took over the bloc’s presidency, said it would not advance a common currency but would look for less reliance on the dollar.
US President Donald Trump is furious about any mention of de-dollarization and in January threatened 100 percent tariffs on BRICS members. But Trump’s threats of tariffs against countries around the world may be making joining the BRICS even more tempting – to insulate themselves from such threats, say analysts.
Already, tariff threats from the US have pushed Mexico to expand a trade deal with the European Union (EU) and look for expanding opportunities with the UAE and Brazil, Foreign Policy wrote. Uruguay, wary of tariffs, has been reaching out to China, and South Africa, due to “bullying” by the US announced last week it is now moving forward on a long-delayed EU-South Africa summit to be held in March to discuss expanding trade and investment.
Regardless, the expanded BRICS is becoming a strong counterweight to the G7 – the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the UK, wrote the Council on Foreign Relations, even as it competes with other clubs including OPEC, the African Union, Mercosur and ASEAN, who all want to see a more “multipolar” world.
Still, issues in the bloc remain. Some members such as Brazil worry about alienating the West, which is why Argentina recently declined membership. India doesn’t want the club to be dominated by China. And Turkey’s application for membership was a shock to geopolitics: If it joins, it would be the first NATO member and candidate for EU membership to have an active role in an entity seen by many as a challenger to the West.
However, the club hasn’t been so unified in its stance against the West that it broke Western sanctions placed on Russia after it invaded Ukraine in 2022. Instead, Russia hasn’t been able to access dollars via the BRICS foreign-currency system because the other BRICS countries didn’t want to cross the West.
Some say the bloc is still too loose and unorganized to create any substantive challenge to the current world order. But others point out that more than 30 countries have expressed interest in joining, which makes it difficult for the US to punish a member country with tariffs, especially if China steps in to ease the pain.
“The size of the bloc makes it increasingly unlikely that the US will apply punitive 100 percent tariffs on BRICS countries,” Duncan Wrigley, chief China+ economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, told CNBC. “Doing so would risk steering nations neutral in the US-China rivalry toward Beijing and interfere with US interests.”
THE WORLD, BRIEFLY
Agreeing to Agree
UKRAINE
The first round of talks between Russia and the United States to end the war in Ukraine concluded in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, with officials from both sides agreeing to press ahead to end the three-year conflict – despite the notable absence of Ukraine and European nations in the negotiations, Reuters reported.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov led the 4.5-hour talks in the capital Riyadh, with both parties agreeing to form high-level negotiating teams to discuss an “enduring, sustainable, and acceptable” resolution to the war, according to the US representatives.
Russian negotiator Yuri Ushakov told reporters the meeting “went well,” adding that there was “a very serious conversation on all the issues we wanted to raise.”
He added that Moscow and Washington are working on setting up a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump, although he acknowledged that “intensive work” is needed first before such a summit, Politico wrote.
Meanwhile, US negotiators noted that the two sides also agreed to create a “consultation mechanism” to address “irritants” in their bilateral relations.
These include efforts “to normalize the operation of the respective diplomatic missions” and “lay the groundwork for future cooperation on issues of mutual geopolitical interest and historic economic and investment opportunities.”
Ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, Russian authorities freed an American citizen who was arrested earlier this month on drug smuggling charges, the Washington Post added.
The negotiations in Saudi Arabia came a week after Trump held a surprise call with Putin about ending the war, which began with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The call sparked alarms among Ukrainian and European allies that Washington had made major concessions in advance, according to Reuters.
Neither Kyiv nor any European Union nations participated in the Saudi talks, which has drawn criticism from allies that Washington is prioritizing geopolitical stability and economic interests over Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
Ahead of the talks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that the negotiators “simply will not be able to accept any agreements without us.”
Despite signs of progress, observers noted that Russia appeared to be hardening its demands: On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said it was “not enough” for NATO to refuse Kyiv’s membership in the security alliance.
She called on NATO to disavow a 2008 pledge that Ukraine could join the security alliance at an unspecified date in the future, warning that such prospects “will continue to poison the atmosphere on the European continent.”
The Trump administration has ruled out Ukraine joining NATO, signaling what critics see as a major preemptive concession to Moscow.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also reiterated Russia’s objection to Ukraine joining NATO but noted that Moscow would not oppose Kyiv’s membership to the EU.
“With regard to Ukraine joining the EU, it is the sovereign right of any country … Nobody can dictate to another country and we do not plan on dictating,” he told Agence France-Presse.
Give and Take
TURKEY
Turkish authorities detained almost 300 people over the past five days, part of a large-scale crackdown on the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), despite renewed efforts between the government and the Kurdish group to end four decades of bloody conflict, the Associated Press reported.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said 282 arrests took place in 51 provinces, adding that the detained individuals are suspected of providing financial support to the PKK, as well as recruiting members and participating in violent protests.
Local media said the detained included members of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM), left-wing activists, and at least three journalists,
The crackdown follows a recent push to restart peace negotiations with the PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
The PPK is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies.
The initiative began in October when the hardline Nationalist Movement Party – allied with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s party – unexpectedly reached out to PKK’s imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan, to renounce violence in exchange for a potential early release, according to Agence France-Presse.
Since December, the DEM party has been engaged in talks with Ocalan and Turkey’s major political factions. A DEM delegation traveled Sunday to Iraq to discuss Kurdish concerns with regional leaders.
PKK militants operate from Iraq’s Kurdistan region, where Turkey has military bases and conducts operations against insurgents.
Kurdish leaders expect Ocalan – who has been serving a life sentence in solitary confinement since 1999 – to issue a call for disarmament in the coming weeks, potentially by the time of Newroz, the Kurdish New Year in March.
Even so, many Kurds remain skeptical of the peace process, citing the collapse of a 2015 peace initiative and Erdoğan’s ongoing crackdown on Kurdish political representation.
Since last year’s local elections, nine elected DEM mayors have been removed from office and replaced with state-appointed officials, most recently on Saturday in the eastern city of Van.
Critics warned that these actions undermine the credibility of the peace process.
However, analysts explained that Erdoğan is employing a strategy aimed at engaging in peace talks while maintaining political and legal pressure on Kurdish groups.
“It sends the message that if these negotiations don’t succeed, there is always this scenario of greater pressure on the members of DEM,” Sinan Ülgen of the analyst group Carnegie Europe told AFP.
A Loaded Name
MEXICO
Mexico is threatening to sue Google if it doesn’t restore the name “Gulf of Mexico” on its Google Maps service, saying that much of the gulf lies outside of US territorial waters, CNN reported.
On Monday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said that US President Donald Trump’s executive order to rename the gulf to the “Gulf of America” can only apply to the US continental shelf.
She added that she is waiting on a response from Google concerning Mexico’s request to restore the name before filing a lawsuit against the company, the Associated Press reported.
Google had already sent a letter to Mexico saying that the company doesn’t plan on changing the name of the gulf because it is following “longstanding maps policies impartially and consistently across all regions,” and only changing names when there have been updates from official government sources.
At the moment, the gulf appears in Google Maps as the Gulf of America for users accessing the service within the US, while it appears as the Gulf of Mexico for those within Mexico and for the rest of the world.
Mexico said that this policy is violating Mexico’s sovereignty as the country has 49 percent jurisdiction over the gulf and the US only 46. The remaining five percent belongs to Cuba. The name Gulf of Mexico has been in use for centuries and is recognized by the United Nations.
Google said it is willing to meet in person with the Mexican government to discuss the topic.
The renaming of the gulf by Trump has raised tension between Mexico and the US at a critical time for the two countries.
Sheinbaum is balancing relations with the US amid tariff threats and mass deportations.
DISCOVERIES
The More, the Merrier
Teamwork has long been crucial for human survival, but scientists traditionally believed that cooperation declines as group size grows.
New research, however, challenges those beliefs, showing that larger groups can enhance collaboration.
Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science made 83 study participants play the prisoner’s dilemma game – a scenario in which players have to choose to either cooperate for mutual benefit or act in self-interest without knowing others’ choices.
In the experiment, groups ranged from two to six participants, and players were allowed to leave a group they didn’t like or remove uncooperative members.
Unexpectedly, people in larger groups were more likely to cooperate, making 57 percent of all decisions together.
However, by monitoring participants’ brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging throughout the game, researchers found that group size itself was not the factor directly encouraging cooperation. Rather, it impacted the way people remembered social interactions and made future decisions.
Brain scans showed that specific brain regions processed memories of past social interactions while others connected the memories to feelings of reward. The prefrontal cortex was found responsible for weighing previous memories against personal tendencies and determining whether or not a participant should cooperate with someone who may have previously betrayed them.
When participants struggled to remember previous interactions, their prefrontal cortex naturally encouraged cooperation over caution, leading to prosocial behaviors – namely, acting to benefit others following their general inclinations to trust and collaborate.
This behavior is believed to pave the way for smoother group dynamics and the maintenance of harmony.
Finding that people have evolved to cooperate effectively in large societies, even outside of stable, well-known relationships, “could help improve teamwork in schools, workplaces, and online environments,” said lead study author Rei Akaishi.